2024 Class Grants Awarded
Imagine Oklahoma is dedicated to supporting education in Oklahoma by investing in students and their futures. From its launch in 2023, to early 2024, each purchase of Imagine Oklahoma merchandise contributed to the Oklahoma Classroom Learning and School Supplies (CLASS) Grant fund for the 2024-2025 school year. While the CLASS Grant receives contributions from multiple sources, Imagine Oklahoma has proudly contributed more than $10,000 over the past year.
Of nearly 500 applicants across the state, 26 teachers were awarded with grants helping to enrich learning in their local schools and communities.
Take a look below at how each of the grants will be utilized during the 2024-2025 school year, and continue to “Purchase with Purpose” through shopping with Imagine Oklahoma.
• 5th-grade Teacher - Tupelo Public Schools - Tupelo Elementary
Received $4,719.00 to enhance and supplement the Science curriculum currently used. Some items include an electricity kit, a kit to make straw rockets, and a kit to explore magnetism.
• Music Teacher - Tulsa Public Schools - Key Elementary
Received $1,811.32 to enhance the auditory experience and learning environment for students by purchasing a JBL PA Speaker. High-quality sound is essential in the music classroom, allowing students to hear different sounds of instruments, to understand dynamics clearer, and to have a better understanding of rhythm and melody.
• Business Teacher - Maud Public Schools- Maud High School
Received $3,538.00 to create a school café. The café will provide students with a hands-on learning experience in running a real-life business. Some items include a commercial slushy machine, a cash register, and bakery display cases.
• Physics and Math Teacher - Jones Public Schools - Jones High School
Received $2,579.00 for data collection tools to increase the quantity and quality of physics labs. Some items in the kit include force and acceleration sensors, differential voltage probes, photogates, and 3-axis magnetic field sensors. These tools collect and share real-time data with devices to create a hands-on, collaborative learning experience.
• STEM Teacher - Rattan Public Schools - Rattan Elementary School
Received $4,995.00 for “Students Take Flight,” where students become proficient in indoor drone flight. Requesting one drone kit and two aerial drone competition kits. At the end of the year, parents, school board members, and other community stakeholders will be invited to “Show What You Know” STEM night, where the students become teachers and share their learning experiences.
• English Teacher - Jay Public Schools - Jay High School
Received $4,402.67 for decodable readers that are geared towards high school students. This enables ninth and tenth-grade students to practice phonics skills while engaging student interest and preserving the dignity of teenagers who are growing their reading ability. Additionally, the text sets come with the following items to support comprehension: a lesson plan, vocabulary-building activities, guided reading questions, and a quiz.
• Science Teacher - Broken Bow Public Schools - Rector Johnson Middle School
Received $1,100.00 for a hands-on learning approach to scientific exploration with microscopic studies. Requesting a high-powered microscope and a digital microscope, as well as microscope slides and Petri dishes. Students will experiment with bacteria growth and will be able to observe, record, and track changes in bacteria, plant and animal tissues, and animal specimens throughout the year.
• Art Teacher - Cushing Public Schools - Cushing Middle School
Received $3,464.63 for art supplies for various projects. The first is a collaborative tile mural, where 7th and 8th-grade students will collaborate on the mural’s design, brainstorm notes, make preliminary sketches and revisions, and finally create the tile mural. Also requesting two tabletop electric pottery wheels for advanced pottery students. Art makesspaces into places, so another project will be designing colorful and informative art pieces to decorate the walls of a new community food bank.
• Math and Science Teacher - Jenks Public Schools - Jenks East Intermediate School
Received $3,633.59 for “Hydroponics Hype!” - a cross-curricular, engaging, interactive, and year-long experiment for students. Items requested include two hydroponic systems with various herb, vegetable, and flower seeds. This project will allow students to grow a variety of plants using a hydroponics system and will allow students to obtain observable and measurable data proving that plants can grow and flourish without soil.
• English Teacher - Elk City Public Schools - Elk City High School
Received $2,159.98 to create an elective course for juniors and seniors to promote critical thinking skills, reading comprehension, and text analysis. In the Mystery and True Crime Literature course, students will analyze literary texts related to true and fictional crime stories. Students will explore society’s true crime obsession while allaying issues, limitations, or problems with that obsession. Items requested include supplies like poster board, crime board red string, and crime scene markers, as well as a podcast equipment bundle and various mystery/true crime texts.
• Pre-K Teacher - Whitebead Public Schools - Whitebead Elementary School
Received $1,734.39 for a variety of supplies and equipment for her classroom. Some of the items include books, puppets, art supplies, and education toys that can be used during story time, free plat, literacy lessons, art, and during indoor recess time. Providing a rich, hands-on environment to keep young learners engaged in a combination of teacher-directed tasks for improvement in following directions and self-directed tasks for increasing independence are key to her grant proposal.
• Second-grade Teachers - Bristow Public Schools - Edison Elementary
Received $3,693.74 to equip their second-grade classrooms with a hands-on learning opportunity to help students better understand telling time and math fluency. Some of the items requested include analog and digital clocks for each classroom, “Math Slam” games for each class, and guided reading strips to increase reading comprehension skills and reading fluency.
• 5th-grade Teacher - Choctaw Nicoma Park Public Schools - Westfall Elementary
Received $2,441.91 to create hands-on math and science experiences for students that go beyond the classroom. The funds will purchase two hydroponic towers allowing students to explore the essentials for cultivating fruits and vegetables. In addition, the funds will provide an opportunity to delve into the art of making sourdough bread. By crafting sourdough, students witness the transformation that occurs when substances interact, monitor the development of bacteria for sourdough production, and go through the three- day process of baking bread from scratch.
• STEM Teacher - Okeene Public Schools - Okeene Jr./Sr. High School
Received $1,910.00 to purchase filament for the class 3-D printer. With the acquisition of high-quality 3-D printer filament, students will be able to utilize the existing 3-D printers to their full potential, enabling students to design, prototype, and create tangible models for their projects.
• EL Teacher - Turpin Public Schools - Turpin Elementary School
Received $2,399.40 to purchase a Hands-On English Kit to support newcomers and low academic EL students. One-third of Turpin school population is ELL, and the curriculum would give the students a sense of accomplishment and belonging.
• 4th-grade Teacher - Dewey Public Schools - Dewey Elementary
Received $1,145.45 to enhance the learning experience during a novel study of “The BFG” by Ronald Dahl. Some items include mason jars for creating “Dream Jars”, construction paper to create characters like the BFG and Sophie, and headphones to listen to the audio version.
• STEM Teacher - Caney Valley Public Schools - Caney Valley Middle School
Received $4,985.35 to purchase 3-D printers. The classrooms current 3-D printers are over 10 years old and fail most of the time. This creates problems for students to be able to follow through with their tasks. The new 3-D printers will stimulate learning in many areas for students while allowing them to successfully complete assignments.
• 2nd-grade Teacher - Atoka Public Schools - Atoka Elementary School
Received $1,239.11 to purchase supplies needed for hands-on inquiry and project-based learning in her classroom. While learning about Matter, students will make snow and butter. Students will do a volcano experiment and use Oreo cookies to recreate the moon’s phases while learning about Earth. During the unit on engineering, students will conduct a telephone experiment using cups and string.
• STEM Teacher - Kingston Public Schools - Kingston Elementary School
Received $5,000.00 to introduce drone technology into K-5 education. By integrating hands-on drove activities with computational thinking and coding skills, this initiative seeks to engage students in STEM disciplines early on, fostering creativity, problem- solving, and digital literacy.
• 1st-grade Teacher - Dewar Public Schools - Dewar Elementary School
Received $1,200.64 for NumberBlocks to increase number sense in students.
NumberBlocks curriculum uses characters and videos to introduce early learning math skills through hands-on discovery and play. Additionally, would like to incorporate manipulatives and activities to bring NumberBlocks to life. The manipulatives requested will be used individually, pair-shared, and in small groups within the classroom.
• Kindergarten Teacher - Deer Creek Public Schools - Deer Creek Elementary School
Received $2,110.50 for supplemental curriculum from Learning Alive for reading and math. Learning Alive uses letter, number, and word cards to encourage students to manipulate and interact with the letters and numbers physically. This curriculum makes student sentences and equations “come to life” and provides a more engaging means to support student interaction in a collaborative way in both phonics and math instruction.
• Alternative Education Teachers - Moore Public Schools - VISTA Academy
Received $4,919.14 for embroidery and looming supplies so students can create personal textile pieces and collaborate on class textile projects. Many of the materials requested are reusable and durable. A few of the items requested include classroom kits for 30 students, a loom, embroidery hoops, needles, and thread.
• Science Teacher - Tuttle Public Schools - Tuttle High School
Received $3,000.00 for science lab equipment. The students will perform experiments differentiating biomolecules, observing anaerobic respiration, and determining if osmosis has occurred. A few of the items requested include beakers, graduated cylinders, and Erlenmeyer flasks.
• Alternative Education Teacher – Claremore Public Schools - Claremore Learning Academy
Received $4,931.53 to refurbish CLC’s Learning Greenhouse. The greenhouse offers students alternative learning opportunities to gain confidence, excel in academics, build community, and experience the therapeutic nature of gardening. Some items requested include a hydroponics system, shade cloths, grow lights, compost, potting soil, and fruit and vegetable seeds.
• K-8th grade Special Education Teacher - Tenkiller Public Schools
Received $1,500.00 to create a listening center in the classroom that is accessible to all students. Some of the items requested include sensory furniture items, headphones, and a Yoto Player, which is a screen-free audiobook player. The Yoto Player cards come in a wide variety of genres, both fiction and nonfiction, and Yoto offers a Phonics bundle to read letters and sounds to students.
• Physical Education Teacher - Stigler Public Schools - Stigler Elementary School
Received $1,580.99 to purchase Speed Stacks, a sport stacking program. The program includes 30 cup sets, 36 jumbo cups, and 6 stack mats. Studies have shown that cup stacking builds tracking ability for reading, sequencing and patterning for math skills, and visual processing skills for word and letter recognition. Always looking for ways to challenge students while ensuring the playing field is leveled for athletic and non-athletic students alike.